Press Room
Marine scientists and engineers have created a new tool to track an essential ingredient on which life in the oceans depends: iron. The instrument, deployed on a buoy off Bermuda for four months in 2004, collected wind-blown particles in the […]
Hundreds of earthquakes occur every day around the world, most of them underneath the oceans, while the vast majority of instruments used to record earthquakes are on land. As a result, advances in understanding basic earthquake processes have been limited […]
While it may be summer in the southern hemisphere, it is still very cold on Antarctica, where WHOI researchers are conducting a number of projects on and around the continent. This month, biologists are working in the waters near Palmer […]
Like robots of the deep, autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, are growing in number and use in the oceans to perform scientific missions ranging from monitoring climate change to mapping the deep sea floor and surveying ancient shipwrecks. Another use […]
Watch the latest progress on the overhaul of the three-person submersible Alvin at http://alvincam.whoi.edu/view/view.shtml. The sub has been ashore in Woods Hole, Massachusetts undergoing overhaul since November and will be ready for sea trials from the research vessel Atlantis in […]
Scientists have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 107°F (42°C)about 25°F (14°C) higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub. The surprisingly high ocean temperatures, the warmest estimates to date for any […]
California?s $30-million-a-year squid fishery has quadrupled in the past decade, but until now there has been no way to assess the continuing viability of squid stocks. A new sonar technique offers a window onto next year?s potential squid population.
Additional contact:
Denise Brehm
MIT News Office
617-253-2704
brehm@mit.edu
After lying hidden for millennia off the coast of Greece, a sunken 4th century B.C. merchant ship and its cargo have been surveyed by an international team using a robotic underwater […]
Magnetotactic bacteria contain chains of magnetic iron minerals that allow them to orient in the earth’s magnetic field much like living compass needles. These bacteria have long been observed to respond to high oxygen levels in the lab by swimming […]
Researchers from WHOI, Harvard, MIT and Princeton will conduct the second part of an intensive field and laboratory study this month at Lonar Crater in Maharashtra, India, looking for clues about the surface of Mars. Lonar Crater is unique among […]
WHOI biologists will travel to Antarctica in mid-February to study salps⎯transparent, gelatinous, planktonic animals that generate massive populations containing individuals 10 centimeters (about four inches) long and colonial chains many meters (more than three feet) long. Salps consume diatoms, the […]
Some physical oceanographers do, even if it is in January in the North Atlantic. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists will spend two weeks this month working south of the Gulf Stream in the Northwest Atlantic trying to understand the […]
Scientists have long recognized that the collision of the earth’s great crustal plates generates mountain ranges and other features of the Earth’s surface. Yet the link between mountain uplift and river drainage patterns has been uncertain. Now scientists have used […]
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has announced a $200-million comprehensive campaign to raise endowment and unrestricted operating funds to support staff and ongoing research and education activities. The campaign is the largest the Institution has conducted, with nearly $133 […]
Results from a July 2005 cruise in the Black Sea may settle a longstanding debate over evidence of a megaflood in the Black Sea, the so-called “Noah’s Flood.” Multibeam bathymetry and sub-bottom profiling reveals ridges, some more than 12 meters […]
New scientific findings are strengthening the case that the oceans and climate are linked in an intricate dance, and that rapid climate change may be related to how vigorously ocean currents move heat between low and high latitudes.
The research, by […]
Advances in undersea imaging systems, the development of new vehicles and instruments, and improved seafloor mapping capabilities have enabled scientists to explore areas of the deep sea in unprecedented detail. One such area is the TAG hydrothermal mound in the […]
Deploying two or more underwater vehicles from a single vessel makes better use of ship time and personnel, but requires specific technical capabilities and careful scheduling. In the past, one vehicle has been recovered before the other was deployed, and […]
The strongest climate cooling event in the last 10,000 years occurred about 8,200 years ago. Known as the 8.2 ka event, it was an abrupt release of freshwater to the ocean as the superlake Agassiz drained through Hudson Strait into […]
Check the WHOI blog for news updates from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting. More than 10,000 Earth, space and ocean scientists are converging on San Francisco this week for the premier annual meeting in their field. Hundreds of […]